


Record Skips and Other Things

by AshToSilver, Zappy



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7577803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zappy/pseuds/Zappy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn’t wanted to make things harder, on this family that had taken him in and cared for him when he’s brought nothing but pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Record Skips and Other Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zappy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zappy/gifts), [AshToSilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/gifts).



> **ALEX/ASHES:**
>
>> I did a trade with [Zapiarty](http://zapiarty.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, with me doing a small fic and her doing an art piece. The art itself should be up later this week or there abouts. We'll update with a new chapter and add it once its done!
>> 
>> This is partially based off of Zap's fan-canon/universe [Crimson Spade](http://crimsonspade.tumblr.com/) in which the Joker is "bent, not broken" and decides to stay as the Red Hood, becoming a vigilante instead of a villain. I decided to try my hand at a clown that's fighting really hard not to become the Joker and doesn't always have an easy time doing it.
>> 
>> For the purpose of the story - every time a "he" pronoun is used, it refers to Red Hood - I worded it so Bruce (while present) has no pronoun usage so you wouldn't get confused. (You'll see why once you read it) Warning for someone having a panic attack and a miserable week, basically.

Some days are easier than others.

He is a record that keeps skipping, he is a cracked vase. That song was the greatest beat and the glass was truly a work of art, but that crackle- that crackle ruined the dance every time and it was all too easy to cut your fingers on sharp edges.

He tries, he really does - he tries to pull through as much as he can spare, he tries to keep it together, but, but, _but_ he is not a man made for enduring, he is not a man made for doubt, he is not a man made for _fighting_.

He is a man made for a falling destiny, he is a man made to fail. He is-

Some days are easier than others.

_Bruce_ is better at this. Bruce has stood firmly upon a path for an whole live-long life, Bruce has walked it and ran it and sometimes fallen to armoured knees on it, but Bruce has never left it. Bruce’s destiny is linear, simple in its brilliance, comforting in its predictableness. 

He sometimes wonders - if he had not forgotten his own path, had not stumbled upon Bruce’s, would he have been forever lost in the grey-space in between? Would he have been lost forever, in the forest and the trees?

Some days-

(Some days he wishes he had drowned in acid and hellfire.)

Some days, he’s just glad to have a pair of decent boots.

It’s winter, which is always the worst time for both he and the bat, when the cold and old memories start to burrow into flesh and bone. No matter how much they run about and fight their battles, the chill always manages to drag at them. It’s a horrible time to be a vigilante.

And maybe that’s why nobody notices at first - everyone’s miserable, everyone’s shivering. It’s so easy to overlook his shaking hands and rattled nerves when the snow has everyone jumping at shadows and noises. It’s so easy to ignore and why would anyone _care_ really, that’s the question.

He’s surveying the damage in an alley off of Callaway and Sixth, where a laundromat of all things has a hole the size of a truck in it’s wall. He’d suspect a disagreement got out of hand, except that there’s no scattered brick or scuff marks or debris of any kind. Just a square hole, with the edges as straight of a ruler and no sign of what used to exist there instead.

Gotham likes to throw its curveballs. If only he wasn’t such a squishy human with so many soft parts and no powers; he can practically _taste_ the sizzle of otherness in the air, saying something magical or meta-natural happened here.

It’s going to be one of _those_ cases.

He doesn’t notice dear Bruce until the bat’s almost on top of him and _boy_ isn’t that a doozy, he’s lucky it wasn’t some punk with a knife like last time. He’s really all prepared to give some nice, verbally organized mission report, but his tongue seems to be stuck in his throat and his hands won’t stop _shaking_. He’d think it’s the cold but he’s so numb he can’t even feel his lungs expanding and really, he wonders what it’s like to have a body that _works_.

He knows Bruce - he knows Bruce like the chemical burns on his skin, like the scratches on his steel playing cards - but when he looks, he doesn’t see Bruce. He sees the Bat instead.

The Bat - he’s fought the Bat before. The Bat is everything he stays awake fearing. The Bat is all the anger and hurt of Gotham bleeding into form and muscle. The Bat-

(He thinks one day the Bat will kill him and then Bruce will never forgive ever again.)

The Bat reaches for him and he dodges. He doesn’t want those claws in his skin and his lovely jacket. The Bat steps forward and he steps back, he doesn’t want the Bat near him, he doesn’t want to know if those fists would be icy cold or burning hot.

The Bat holds up a hand and there’s a crackle in his ear, like a record skipping or someone talking and he _runs_.

Fuck, how he runs.

One of the few differences - and there are very, very few - between him and the Bat is simple; he carries a couple of tools and some kelver laced clothing and the Bat carries enough equipment and armour to make a soldier weep. Which means that regardless of how much training the Bat has undergone and how poor his own lungs are, he will always win in a flat-out chase.

As long as the Bat keeps to the ground that is.

He blows past a couple of people returning from late shifts and a few of Gotham’s homeless population and manages to make it all the way to Hillsberg and Sixth before the Bat’s line slings across the sidewalk and sends him slamming face-first into the ground.

He tastes blood and his head rings from connecting with his helmet. His knees don’t respond and he can’t get his hands under himself to push up. He’s going to lose, he’s going to get caught, he’ll be beaten into the _ground_ and then what will Bruce say? What will Bruce say, because he allowed this to happen?

He screams when he’s grabbed from behind and pulled onto feet that don’t want to stay under him. He feels the Bat’s hands crawl across his stomach and tries to rip them away, only to cling to them when the ground lunges away and the Bat takes to the sky, dragging him along on a grappling hook.

The Bat dumps him on a rooftop he should recognize but _doesn’t_. The world is greying around the edges and the air wouldn’t go into his lungs and he _hates_ _this_. He knows this feeling but he _hates this_ and he can’t _name_ _it_ or figure out how to stop it and the Bat’s going to _kill him_.

The Bat’s going to kill him.

He thought he would feel better about this.

The Bat flips him over onto his back and pins him down, an impossible weight pressing the world into flesh. He swears he can feel his bones protest at the pressure, but that doesn’t make sense as much as he wants it to.

He claws, he struggles, he tries to push himself away even as his lungs start to fail on him and the world twists and warps-

“-! It’s me, it’s Bruce, calm down, please.” One massive paw keeps him in place as the other goes up to rip off the Bat’s cowl, revealing a handsome face he knows all too well. “It’s just me, I swear it.”

“Bruce,” he croaks, suddenly so sore and tired and _small_. “I- I...”

“It’s okay,” Bruce lifts _hands_ , not claws off his chest and pulls the red hood off gently. “You didn’t hurt anyone, I think you just startled some pedestrians.”

He chokes, on icy air and this strange kindness, blood colouring his lips and teeth. He knows Bruce. He has to know Bruce. He thinks his chest squeezes so painfully when he thinks of Bruce and maybe that’s hate? Maybe it’s fear? But it’s _important_ , he knows that, he has to know that.

He feels more like someone _told_ him it was important and now that he’s thinking about it, he can’t remember why.

Bruce makes a noise like a record skip, like a censor beep. “-, are you alright? I thought it would be best to get you off the streets quickly.” Burning hot hands-paws-claws press lightly against sore ribs. “Any damage? ---?”

He draws in a sob, at the record skip screeching in his mind. Maybe it’s Gotham trying to tell him something, or maybe it’s a word he’s not suppose to hear, but either way it’s grating on his ears and everything just _hurts_ right now.

The concern on Bruce’s face deepens. Bruce’s mouth opens to speak and the record skips again, but there are no words. There are no _words_.

“-? It’s happening again isn’t it? Can you hear me? Nod if you can hear most of what I’m saying.”

It takes a moment for his brain to send the right signals, but he manages it, a faint nod that’s more like a jerk. But Bruce must see it, because he gets a small smile for his efforts.

He knows that smile. It warms and twists his insides, painful and yet he _wants it_. Fuck, how he wants it.

“I can work with that,” Bruce says, and pulls him up until he’s sitting cross-legged in front of the bat, hands in hands. It’s a warm place to be, in Bruce’s hands and even though the needle’s going off the turntable, even though his coat’s unraveling from a loose thread, it feels so _good_ to have rough thumbs rubbing against stiff fingers.

It’s been such a long week. He feels as if he hasn’t seen Bruce for months, as if they’ve been separated by an ocean. But he knows it’s just one of _those_ weeks and he’s been eating alone, sleeping in a cold bed and it's nobody’s fault really. Gotham is just too much work sometimes.

“I-I-m’s-orry,” he chokes into cold air, “I-I a-am so-so-”

“Don’t be.” Bruce’s voice was so soft, Bruce’s hands gentle. “It’s more my fault than yours, I had that case in the Narrows and Stephanie was fighting with Tim and I just got so distracted. I should have taken some time to check on you, I could see you were struggling.”

“S’okay,” he croaks, “I-I d-didn’ want m-make…” he hadn’t wanted to make things harder, on this family that had taken him in and cared for him when he’s brought nothing but pain. This family whose names are slipping between his fingers like water and he’s starting to realise - he thinks he knows the record skip. It’s one word or two or maybe three, but no more than four. Just a couple of words that mean a whole awful lot but sometimes he forgets why and then he forgets them because he doesn’t _deserve_ _them_ and-

“Listen to me, I’m going to put your hands on my chest, alright?” Bruce waits a moment, before black gloves take slender fingers and place them on bullet dusted kelver. “Feel my heart, feel how it’s beating. Nice and slow… nice and slow… I’m going to lean closer to your face, alright? I’m going to press my forehead against yours. Can you feel me breathing? Can you feel my lungs expanding? It’s important to breath deeply after running… listen to how I breath in… and out… My heart, my dear, my love. I know it’s easy to get lost sometimes, it’s so easy to get turned around in your own head. But I’ll always find you, alright? I’m right here.”

A shuddering breath goes through his teeth and turns into a sob, bare inches from Bruce’s mouth. He wants to bite down or suck all the air from Bruce’s lungs, but he can’t decide which one or if he should or if he deserves it, so he doesn’t.

It’s so easy to just… not move. He could stay here forever, with Gotham’s heart beating beneath his fingertips. He focuses on that, the _thump thump thump_ beneath his fingers, so level and sure and Bruce lets him.

“Do you remember what your name is today?” Bruce asks, after a moment, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it over the silence.

The city is so quiet and cold, the snow drifting from the night’s sky like it doesn’t have a care in the world.

“No,” he croaks, and closes his eyes against the despair he can see in his bat’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> **ALEX/ASHES:**
>
>> In case you didn't get it (because I was tired when I worked on this and I don't know how clear I made it), the "record skip" noise that Red Hood is thinking he's hearing is his brain not processing his name(s) properly - which is why throughout the story, Red's only referred to as "he", because he's struggling to keep a hold on who he is. The words he forgets are also the various names he's used and the -? and --- in Bruce's dialogue is Red mentally skipping over his name being spoken.
>> 
>> Hope you enjoyed it, and if you're interested in doing a trade, I've got some info [here](http://ashtosilver.tumblr.com/post/147788141364) on my blog.


End file.
